Second soldier convicted in scandal at Abu Ghraib
FORT HOOD, Texas – A military jury on Monday convicted the second soldier to be tried in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, returning guilty verdicts on all but one of the seven charges she faced for her role in the abuse of Iraqi inmates.
The panel convicted Spc. Sabrina Harman on one count of conspiracy to maltreat detainees, four counts of maltreating detainees and one count of dereliction of duty. The 27-year-old reservist from Lorton, Va., was acquitted on one maltreatment count that accused her of photographing a group of Iraqi detainees who were forced to masturbate in public by Abu Ghraib guards. A co-defendant testified that she was not present.
The jury also found Harman did not commit two of nine acts that were part of the dereliction charge. She was convicted of the overall offense.
Jurors deliberated for about 3 1/2 hours. Harman showed no reaction as the jury foreman read each of the verdicts. She left the building without speaking to reporters.
Her sentencing hearing was to begin today. Harman faces a maximum of 5 1/2 years in a military prison.
Harman, a former pizza shop manager from Virginia, was the second soldier to be tried for allegedly mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib. She was depicted in several of the most notorious photos taken at Abu Ghraib in late October and early November 2003, and she is accused of taking other pictures.
Harman posed for a photo with Pvt. Charles Graner Jr. behind a group of naked detainees stacked in a pyramid. In another photo, she was shown with a prisoner on whose leg she is accused of writing “rapeist.”
In their closing arguments, prosecutors said that Harman and other guards on the night shift conspired to mistreat the prisoners.
“They were all acting together for their own amusement,” said Capt. Chris Graveline. “There was no justification for what they did that night.”
Graveline said the group took pictures of what they were doing “so they could remember that night, so they could laugh again at these men. … There’s nothing funny about what happened at Abu Ghraib.”
Defense lawyer Frank Spinner said Harman was a novice soldier who had no prison guard experience and who received virtually no training before going to work at the chaotic and overcrowded prison as part of the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company.